one can’t choose but wait

I lost my sister about ten year ago. I was young then. I didn’t really know what losing someone really meant. Instead, I was proud that I didn’t shed a tear when I heard the news or when she was cremated without my knowledge.
She was 23 when she died of blood cancer. Back then, I didn’t know what blood cancer was but I knew it was a painful disease that gradually kills.
A year passed after she was diagnosed of cancer. She was admitted at the Thimphu Hospital. She lay bed-ridden for months. Later she was referred to Vellore in India for treatment. Even after desperate attempts by doctors, they failed to get hold of a matching bone marrow.
She had never been the same after that. She loved to drink bottled Miranda juice, and despite her pain, she always had something funny to say.
A bunch of her front hair was grey. It was unique. High fever consumed her, her body too fragile to even sit upright and her face was dark because of the continuous blood transfusion she had to undergo.
Whenever I hear of a cancer patient, her poor fragile body and the pain comes back as if it just happened yesterday.
Recently, a friend of mine said she would not mind dying of cancer. She reasoned that if she knew she had cancer she would have the time to do good things, like praying and earning spiritual merits.
Does it work that way? What happens to those who die a sudden death? Do they not go to heaven? Everything has its own time. Some people are very religious at a very young age while some wait till they are a little older or old enough to start praying.
I don’t really subscribe to her ideas but perhaps this is why many people prefer dying while asleep.

Birthday memoirs

Last night I was going through a box filled with my childhood stuffs. I fished out all the birthday cards I had received over the years. I stood there thinking.

I tried to remember a few friends who had, in the tussle of life, faded away from our memories and the birthday celebrations that have faded with them.
I thought about the cordial wishes on birthday cards that have been replaced by tailored wishes on Facebook. I realized how the count on wishes from your friend list on Facebook mattered and the last time I received a card for my birthday.

I remembered the times when I woke up in the morning and found presents on my pillow or underneath it. The excitement and suspense to open the presents made me wait for another year to celebrate another birthday.

I missed the birthdays when we took chocolates to school for the whole class. It was like a custom. I don’t remember when it started but my twin-sister and I ensured that we had chocolates for the whole school.  For me, or rather my parents, celebrating a twin birthday was never easy. Everything needed to be in pairs- a pair of gifts, a pair of cake, a pair of everything.

Back then the issue was that it was my birthday and everything had to be special but now I look back and sub-consciously wondered if I should have been there to share the cost.
Normally we don’t realize that parents too have birthdays and that wishing them on their birthdays brings them the greatest joy. I quickly recalled the birthdays of my parents and ensured that I am the first one to wish them on their birthdays from now on.

When you are young, birthdays come with gifts.  As you grow older, birthday treats mean booze, partying and a lot more booze.

As you grow old celebrating birthdays become childish yet you await birthday wishes and presents year after year.  After all it was the day you were born.

i miss u my love

It’s been just 4 months we have been married and here I am in this unknown country away from you. I have known you for the past five years yet it feels like I have just met you yesterday. There is still so much I don’t know about you which makes our relation even more special because it is ‘discovery time.’

Many people I know have asked me if I had enough of my relation. My response was simple and quick ‘No, I still have so much to learn about my love.’

I still don’t really how we actually got tangled in the marriage thingy but come to look at it; I think it was for the BEST. We had decided not to get married for another 5 years or so, but look at us now; we are married and tied to each other for ever.

‘If you are given a time machine, would you go over your wedding all over again?’ I was asked a couple of times. Well, NO! I think once was enough. But I would definitely like to go back to the time when we were kids. My husband and I had been in the same school for two years but I do not remember a single time we spoke to each other. I would definitely want to change that.

When I saw you after 9 years in Bangalore, I was surprised for you looked different. Well we didn’t speak then too but as we met often at our friend’s place, we began to know each other better and by the time we realized, we had become best buddies.

From best buddies, we took our relation to another level. On August 8 however, you decided to propose me and there I was, happily accepting it. I knew then that you are the one i want to spend the rest of my life with.

However, I hadn’t expected us to be married after five years, so soon eh, but here we are, on the eve of our fifth anniversary, we were pronounced man and wife.

Today is our fourth month anniversary and I miss you a lot. I know we had made plans to go out for a holiday but that will have to wait for some weeks. I will be home in 3 weeks love. I miss you. Happy Anniversary. LOVE u

'SERVUS' Germany!

Not even in the wildest of my imaginations had I ever dreamt that one day I would be in Germany. And when I finally did, after seven excruciating hours of flight, I knew this was too real to be true. After several days now, the feeling is finally settling down.

Winter is here in Europe, and is far too cold than I was prepared for. Despite the biting cold and thick fog that covers the landscape most of the time, Germany is a beautiful place. I am in Vilshofen in Passau, the city of three rivers where Donau river is joined at Passau by the Inn river from the south and the Ilz river from the north to go to the Black Sea.

This was my median excursion into Europe and besides the little Google research I had done, I barely knew of this vast country.
Not until I reached Munich when a young gentleman helped me with my bag at the train station. I was told that Germans could be an unfriendly lot but to my utter surprise, they were in fact the very opposite. They were nice, helpful and kind.
 ‘Servus,’ and ‘gruss gott’ are greetings that I have been hearing since I landed here. It is either a welcoming or departing greeting in German. Another word is ‘Danke’ which means thank you.
Believe it or not, I have never been to a church. And here I visited the St. Stephan’s Cathedral or Dom St. Stephan, the largest church organ in the world. The Cathedral organ represents one of the main tourists’ attractions.

With a population of about 50,000 living in Passau and about 17,000 in Vilshofen, markets get a little crowded during the weekends. My arrival here coincided with the preparations for Christmas. It was a flurry of activities.

Trees were being trimmed and lit with colourful lights, houses being decorated, children going through the advertisement books to check out gifts they want their parents to buy for them and parents checking their check list of what needs to be done or ticking those that have already been completed.

Children wait for the first Sunday of the last week of November to light the first candle to signify the countdown of the Christmas. I was given an unexpected honor to light the first candle at my host’s home too.

As you walk along the Passau city, you reach the city hall where the markings of the water level and in which year have been marked. It is incredible to see how high the markings go. It was just so great.

Having been in Germany for only one week, I am certain that I do not like Pretzel, known as ‘Brezel’ in German. When I told Carmen Keller of not liking pretzel, she gave me a shocked look.

She said, “Everybody loves Pretzel,” and further added that there is no childhood if there was no pretzel.

But the Bavarian beer, I must admit, is a fine beer. If you ever come to Germany, you should definitely try the beer.

One tradition that caught my attention was the symbol that indicated that someone had a baby. A wooden stork is pitched at the junction towards the house. A line of cans/tins hung above the stork symbolises the birth of a girl and vice versa.

That’s it for now. But I still have 20 more days to explore.

From Himalaya I am…

I have been in Germany for the past 2 weeks and it is weird how people think about Bhutan. Oh! You are the girl from the Himalayas… and the funny thing is people think that people from the Himalayas are suppose to be in some kind of stone age… not that I am angry. Well they feel angry for having thought otherwise.

I have done the same too. Before I came to Germany, I thought people here were rude and mean. I thought I would not feel at home at their place, but I was wrong too. I cannot say the same of the other people in Berlin or Munich or other big cities in Germany, but I sure can say for the people here in Vilshofen. They are very different from what I thought they would be.

Well not many people here have heard about Bhutan and the few lot who have heard about Bhutan are so happy to meet an alien from an alien country… they have so many questions and I am glad I could answer their questions. But many also feel that Bhutan is too backward to be too civilised or be informed of the happenings around the world.  

I once sat down to watch a movie and I was asked if I have watched this movie or that movie. And my answer was ‘YES.’ And the response I got was, ‘you are supposed to be from Bhutan, from Himalayas.’ What is that suppose to mean now? I asked myself!

The other time, when I told them that there is no McDonalds and KFC in Bhutan, I was asked if we have Pizzas and if I have ever tried burger…

They are even surprised at how comfortable I am with my laptop or doing something with the computer…  I guess they were expecting some kind of an alien who knew nothing… I am glad I was able to change their perception about Bhutan and the Bhutanese people.

RAVING AND RANTING WALLET

a confession on a wallet
The brand is the only pride I have. Lous Vitton that I am. The rest, you might say, is a tragedy that unfolds every other day. Of course I am handy, portability is my forte.
I was bought from a departmental store in India. Since then, as fate would have it, I have mostly been carrying Bhutanese Ngultrum, though the Indian rupee makes its round from time to time.
I am proud when I go around with my tummy bulging out. My master is a reporter and every day I get the singular opportunity to meet different people. I have known a lot of people and I am also the sole witness to a lot of conversations. At times I also disagree on issues but keeping it to myself is all I can do.
The first week of every month sees me stuffed with new and old notes but by the second week I would have thinned out. When my master receives his salary I have difficulty getting the breathing space but when he is broke I lay thrown on the bed or under a pillow and the little stored is also snatched away from me. That is when I pray for the next month to begin.
At times I have to go hungry for a month and that is when I am embarrassed the most. Making out from the frown on my master’s face these are the times when the atmosphere gets a bit stressful.
I would be flung across the room, into the closet or on the bed. I would be there for a long time until my master would come back and make a search, desparately for cash.
I have a lot of friends. Besides my usual companions – two credit cards, a citizenship identity card, a dozen of visiting cards and an ATM.
I am made of leather. I am foldable and this is one of the reasons why my kind does not wear out fast. When I am old I am immediately replaced.
One of my confessions is that I have never taken a bath.
Humans believe that ‘You should not wash wallets lest money will keep flowing out.”
To keep up with their myth, I have never been washed. Humans would rather throw my kind than wash us.’
Though I was never used in the past, modern day human feel incomplete without me. I am here to store cash.
Today is September 10 and I have just been loaded. I am comfortable for the moment but I fear this month I would have to go hungry for a longer time as my master has just paid his yearly vehicle registration renewal fees along with a penalty for late payment.

it’s not all about sex and size, viagra speaks

Certainly, size doesn’t matter as long as it is of some purpose. Mark my words. Small can do wonders sometimes. It is as if the strength lies in it size.

If you are thinking kinky stuff or otherwise, this is not one about that. I am a living example of how good and all power small can be.

Though I am just about the size of any usual tablet, I have the ability to solve two of the most personal and serious problems of mankind – heart and sex related that is.

Scientifically called sildenafil citrate and popularly known as Viagra, I was first developed more than a decade ago by scientists who were testing a drug for its ability to lower blood pressure and coincidentally came out with a remedy for erectile dysfunction or lack of erection during sexual performance. Eureka!

Interestingly people on whom the first the blue pill were tested for blood pressure didn’t want to give it back. Of course you know why! 

Since then millions of people around the world have used me, the magic pill – the reinvigorator of lifeles passion.

I have been proven effective on both men and women to cure heart problems while as nature wants it, men alone can use me to solve erectile dysfunction. 

Heart patients use me to relax parts of the heart to allow normal flow of blood to and from the heart and during erectile dysfunction, I am used to develop the ability to maintain prolonged erection in sexual performance.

I come in blue, pink and red colors though I feel more colors would be a welcome to meet the tastes of different people. But again on a second thought I drop the idea as I am a drug that must be used when required and should be avoided when not.

I have been popular since inception but authorities have been cautious of my use. A special prescription from the doctor is required to use me. I cost about Nu 22 a tablet, and come in a box of four tablets bringing the cost to Nu 85 a packet.

Some say I am very expensive and I totally agree but I would also like to believe that the advantage that I bring along is worthwhile.

My kind has been around for over a decade saving lives and families and vow to continue doing so. I have been adorably called big fun by men whose sex drives I have solved.

Sitting on the shelf of a pharmacy I have spotted men who are tempted to buy me but are too embarrassed to ask. Well! I would like to say that I belong to the directives of the doctor and I just cannot be bought for money. Strictly prescribed!

PS - i was told that after my article came out in the paper (Aug 27), there were people coming to the pharmacy to purchase Viagra.. How crazy is that!!! i said "Strictly prescribed" yet some people don't get it!